By Janadas Devan
NOV 22 — The book as we know it, the codex, gradually replaced the scroll between AD100 and AD400. There are a number of reasons it became the preferred medium: It was sturdier, it was probably cheaper and its numbered pages made it easier to use.
Imagine looking for a particular passage in Plato's Republic among a pile of scrolls. Now where is that passage where Plato condemns poets? Research must have resembled looking for a needle in a haystack.
By Cheong Suk-Wai
SINGAPORE, Nov 22 — Social scientist Derek da Cunha is a man so mindful of what he says publicly that one wonders why he thought to write a book on one of Singapore's most heated subjects — that is, the pros and cons of Singapore's two upcoming integrated resorts (IRs). Okay, casinos.
Then again, it may be because of his mindfulness that makes his book — titled “Singapore Places Its Bets” — a cracking good read on everything you ever cheered or feared about having the Marina Bay Sands (MBS) and Resorts World Sentosa (RWS) in your midst from next year.
TAIPEI, Nov 20 – Hourly wages below a dollar. Firings with no notice. Indifferent bosses. Labour brokers that leech away months of a worker’s hard-earned wages. A corporate shell game that leaves no one responsible.
Such conditions are widespread at the contract factories cranking out some of the most popular gadgets on the holiday season’s gift lists, according to labour rights activists and workers interviewed by GlobalPost.
Whether it’s your cherished iPhone, Nokia cell phone or Dell keyboard, it was likely made and assembled in Asia by workers who have few rights, and often toil under sweatshop-like conditions, activists say.
NEW YORK, Nov 20 — The competitors stood nervously on stage, awaiting the judges’ decisions. As each name was called the crowd cheered, and the winner stepped forward to claim a prize, bowing his or her head to accept a medal.
“Wow, that was a miracle,” said Kyoko Katsura, the winner in the women’s division of the New York Regional Yoga Championship.
Yoga championship?
SHONGA (Nigeria), Nov 20 — When white Zimbabwean farmer Irvin Reid arrived in Nigeria almost five years ago, he was given a set of grid references in the remote bush and told to find water and build a new farm.
His dairy farm now has 300 Jersey cows, some of among 800 imported from South Africa to start cattle farms in the region. It's a sharp contrast to things back in Zimbabwe, where campaigners say farmers face their worst year ever.
